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Three of the leading Democratic candidates for governor faced off Tuesday night in a forum at Sacramento’s Crest Theater.

The first-of-its-kind event was hosted by an African-American women's advocacy group whose members wanted to hear how the candidates' policies would affect them.

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Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, State Treasurer John Chang and former State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin agreed on policy more often than not.

They also discussed the absence of Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was at a Democratic event in Los Angeles. He's the fourth Democrat running for California governor.

Here's a look at the four topics that came up during the event and part of candidates' responses.

HEALTH CARE

Villaraigosa: We need to protect the (Affordable Care Act). Trump is proposing to cut 2 (million) to 5 million people from the ACA.

The ACA has provided health care for about 90 percent of the population. That’s not 100 percent -- that’s what we need to be.

Chiang: I believe health care is a right, not a privilege. I support a single-payer health care system. I support Medicare for all and universal coverage.

We need to support and defend Obamacare. We’ve expanded coverage dramatically, but we need to cover 2.7 million more Californians.

Eastin: We have for-profit companies that are commandeering the control of health care in the state of California.

When we look at other democratic societies, we see things like in Canada where in fact everybody is covered by health insurance and they’re spending a lot less and people are a lot healthier. Duh. So, it’s really time to in fact move to a single payer system.

PUBLIC SAFETY

Villaraigosa: I want to move that prison pipeline to a pipeline of hope and opportunity. That starts with early childhood education, universal preschool, full-day kindergarten, investing in children early.

It starts with a criminal justice system that is broken. While I was mayor, there was a 49 percent drop in violent crime with constitutional and community policing, civilian oversight, building community-based policing that was focused on prevention, intervention, job reentry.

Chiang: Part of this public safety involves our engagement with our law enforcement communities.

It’s important we have a conversation about Black Lives Matter. What is the accountability? You’re only going to have trust if you build a community and part of that is having cultural sensitivities. I think, in too many respects, it’s lacking.

Eastin: It’s easier to create great children than repair broken men. We have a school-to-prison pipeline and it’s because we’re underinvested in education and overinvested in prisons.

Let's put our children first, and then we won’t have this problem -- this very expensive and mean problem.

NEWSOM MISSING

Villaraigosa: This is a community that’s important. We’re all busy. We’re all up and down the state. We all double-book. But sometimes, you just got to show up.

Chiang: If you said you’re going to come to this historic gathering, then you can’t leave just because you think you find something better.

Eastin: I will just say that it happens often enough that I think some of the other candidates feel that he’s assuming that he’s going to make it into the other round and doesn’t really have to show up.

KEEPING AFRICAN-AMERICAN WOMEN OUT OF JAIL

Villaraigosa: I think we need to put a lot more resources in the anti-gang programs and prevention programs and intervention programs because many of these girls, African-American and Latina, are disproportionately in gangs or affiliated with them. I think we’ve got the put the resources there in the first place.

Then once they’re in, we’ve got to have a penal system, a criminal justice system, that’s focused on rehabilitation, job reentry, mental health, drug rehab. We’re not spending enough resources in that regard. We’re just locking them up and putting them away.

Chiang: We need a comprehensive strategy about putting successful people in young kids' lives everywhere that they have a point of contact. By bringing in the public sector, bringing in educational, we need the wrap around services that need to be updated.

When you go to school, how do you bring in the appropriate health care services, how do you bring in the social services, how do you bring the human services? We need to make sure that the child’s family gets the access and support that they get. Because if that happens, then they’re going to be successful.

Eastin: We’ve got to strengthen, yes, education, but we’ve also got to pay attention -- much more attention to the social and emotional support we give to our children when they’re in school.

Sometimes they do have problems at home. We’ve got to end this bad habit we’ve got of not giving the kids a great education and then throwing them in jail. The best crime program that I know of is really excellent education programs.